We got close enough to see what it was doing and Joel starts getting so excited he’s grabbing my shoulders and shaking me and throwing little jabs into my ribs. I’ve never seen a guy so excited about waves. It’s the old bull, young bull kind of thing with me and Joel that day. He wanted to run down the hill and f*ck ‘em all that day, trying to catch everything that moved out there.

“This one, Louie?” “This one?”

“Nah, mate, let’s just wait.”

Slow down. I don’t know how many times I told him to slow down that day because he wanted to catch every wave out there. There are waves breaking all over the place, it was like a wave park out there, and the secret was picking the eyes out of it. But Joel got some stupid waves that day. I’m sitting at the base of them looking back going, oh my god, look at this thing. Some of them were like Inside Sunset, just better. – Luke Egan

It begins the night before. You ring that number before you go to bed and start thinking, well, if the 5am buoy is saying 15 feet at 20 seconds, then the swells got to be here soon. You lie in bed that night and you can usually pick the first set of the new swell, you’ll hear it on the reef and you’ll feel a little shudder go through the house. It’s so quiet on the North Shore at night that the only noise is the sounds of breaking waves. Then you can hear it coming up the beach, and if it’s really big you can hear it hitting the rock wall under the house. You wake up early the next morning, walk out onto the veranda, and there it is. – Joel

Excerpt from Parko+Friends… check it out here.

Belly taking a dip out the front of his place in France, commiserating Collingwood's loss yesterday in the AFL grand final.

Yeah, my house here in France is more or less the Australian embassy when the boys get here from home. It’s always football finals weekend when they’re here in France every year and my place is the only place that gets the games broadcast live, so it makes for pretty interesting viewing and some interesting wagers. I’m still not sure why we let Monica Parkinson into our football tipping comp. Halfway through the year I opened my big mouth and said if I got beaten by a woman in the tipping comp I’d cook a barbecue for everyone in the nude at my place when they came to France. Mick Fanning has the evidence on his telephone of that and it’s not a pretty sight, believe you me. Monica’s not in our tipping comp anymore. I put a new rule in – no chicks allowed. We can’t get beaten by a woman at our own game. But it’s always fun and games at my place, and it breaks the ice of the serious side of it. – Stephen “Belly” Bell

Excerpt from Parko+Friends

Joel talks about coming to J-Bay for the first time in 1999… and winning the contest. An excerpt from Parko+Friends

“The year I’d won J-Bay I’d come straight from Reunion Island where I’d got last in my first heat, rock bottom. I got fourth in my first heat, Scardy beat me. I was killing the juniors and Reunion was my first crack at the ‘QS and I got sat on my arse. I got 346^th I think. So going into J-Bay my confidence was sky high, obviously. But it grew quickly in J-Bay.

I’d got there early and there was swell straight away, but by the time the ‘CT guys had arrived it had died off so I hadn’t actually seen any of them surf the place. My impression of those guys after watching them on video for so many years was that they were all gods, and I was just some punk kid. I thought I was going to be murdered as soon as I surfed against them. But I remember watching that first day going, oh, okay, so that’s the guy. He doesn’t look quite as good as he did in the movie. But I kept on thinking it was going to lose that contest. I surfed stupid… and it kinda worked. I paddled out thinking I was going to lose. I just kept thinking, as long as I’m on the inside slot at least I’ll get a good wave and won’t make too much of a fool of myself. But heat-to-heat I kept astonishing myself. I had close heats with Snake and Machado, and I remember Snake wouldn’t give me the inside. Snake was tough though. Hassled and hassled. I’ve never won a heat though at J-Bay by giving up the inside. Never. Even to this day.

I think Ross Williams needed a 6.83 in the final to catch me. It was a dud final. Fours, fives, sixes. I got the highest wave, a seven, and that was for a layback, kicked the tail out and I got a seven for it. It wasn’t until the hooter went that I actually twigged I’d won it. I kept assuming Ross would get the score he needed, but it never happened.

I can’t remember much about the party. I remember walking home later that night, blind, and I walk in at two in the morning and here’s this local guy rolling my boardbag out the door. I’m walking into my room and this guy has got my coffin boardbag with six boards in it, including the board I’d just won the contest on. I just think he’s one of the local crew and go, “Hey, mate!” hugging him, thinking he’s one of the gardeners or something. Then he kind of backs away and looks at me, and I kind of look at him, then it twigs –the bastard was stealing my boards. He’s just bolted out into the night, quick as a flash. I didn’t even piece it together… I was pretty green in those days.”

Hope it's doing this tomorrow...

[Page grab from Parko+Friends]